Monday, April 16, 2007

My family is from Hawaii, so I grew up listening to Don Ho, watching specials featuring him, and singing along with him. Aloha Don.

In short film news, we are closing our location agreement today. There was a lot of back and forth to get the rate down (and I still think we should scrap it and go low-tech), but we're finally about to close. We have insurance, I'm renting a fire truck that comes with four outfitted firemen, I have an ambulance and a cop car on standby, and a nice stretch limo with tinted windows. Hmmm.... Now I have to deal with catering, the electrician, set decorating, getting a fire marshall and lining up some dang PAs. I have a pickup truck which I can't drive because it's a manual transmission, so every time I need it I have to find someone who can drive for me. Seems like it would be simpler to just learn how to get out of first on a hill, right? Maybe next year.

Anyway, the shooting schedule is done, I'm updating the budget and I have to talk to the sound guy to make sure he has every thing he needs. The problem with short films is that if you offer folks some help, they ask for things that cost money. I better get some good payback for this one.

For my own short film, the one I'm planning to direct, I found a really great community-based theater with some incredibly well-trained actors to help me stage a reading next month. I randomly went to drinks with a friend from film school and mentioned the topic of my short and he offered to grandfather me into the group that he works with. I'm excited to be getting back into it.

My pilot is almost ready for public consumption. I received excellent notes from the indie director I worked with last summer. He finished shooting a TV pilot last month and was out here for another TV thing, so we talked on the phone about the script, I turned around the notes he gave me and he re-read the draft, gave me some adjustments and when I finish those I'm going out to managers and agents. I have a few people on the line from the last few months, so we'll see. I'm totally out of season on this and probably will end up not getting read until summer, but a few folks have said they will call in favors on my behalf. It's funny for me to be both producing and sending my spec out into the world. On the one hand, I'm telling middle-aged men to calm down and let me handle things, and on the other, I'm having crazy stress dreams about being asked to leave cruise ships because I booked my tickets too late....